Poor Tobby. I’m pretty sure going to a literate home is better for him. I mean, if this Linda lady can’t type a coherent sentence, what are the chances she can read a label that says “Rat Poison” and a label that says “Tiny Rat Dog Food” and know the difference?

I hear that if you scrub your karma down after expelling it, chop it up nicely, freeze it and then eat it, bit by bit, while going through the efforts of nurturing the reborn, nurturing the inner you, you can gain a bit of it back. I hear it’s full of nutrients, though some are aghast at the idea of taking in so much good will, or bad will, depending on your own personal stage of enlightenment.

How do they or you know somebody “stoled” Tobby? I’m pretty sure that dog had dreams of a better life than living in that trailer and went off Hollywood. He will probably end up in doggy pron within a year.

That kind of depends, though. It’s worse to steal the dog, but many many people don’t really care for their animals, so if this person left their tiny short-coated chihuahua outside for a few hours in November in Washington, someone might have “stolen” the half-alive freezing dog, maybe even Animal Control. At that point, they’re stealing the dog to save its life.

Also, very few people fence in front yards and a puppy that young is prime running away age, so it’s entirely possible that the dog was not stolen but wandered away on it’s own. Not to mention the fact that small adult dogs have been known to be hawk and owl prey, never mind a puppy.

Really, I don’t know anyone who is intelligent and cares about their pets who would leave any dog alone and unsupervised in an easily accessible front yard, and definitely no-one who would do it with a small breed puppy. If I were the owner, I’d be hoping someone took it, because that’s the most likely scenario that has the dog still alive.

CG, I don’t think Saffron was implying that the thieves were unaware that the backpack belonged to someone. But rather that stealing someone’s pet (which is, in most cases, like a member of the family) is far more reprehensible than taking someone’s video camera.

Sam, I agree with you on most points, but the note states that the dog was taken at the end of April, not November, so the “rescuing this poor frozen puppy” explanation doesn’t really fly.

Either way, I feel bad for the owner. I cannot imagine what I would do if someone “stoled” my dog.

Hey first time Dad! There was no thief. It was your wife’s father who stole the tapes at her request so she would not have to relive the birth over and over again with her cha cha hanging out and it being constantly rewound and played in reverse for posterity.

Why do people tape the birth of their child? Like, what, you’re going to forget that you gave birth? And do they really go back and watch it? I don’t want to watch it live, let alone on tape. People are weird.

Or a predatory bird. As someone who has seen a hawk pick up a dog bigger than a 10 wk old teacup chihuahua, its a much more likely scenario than someone coveting thy neighbor’s baby canine and leaning over the precariously perched fence, surreptitiously picking up a miniature, wriggling mass.
btw, said hawk eventually dropped the dog and it lived, although it was never quite right after that. Tobby’s better off if he was merely plucked up by strong talons, neck quickly broken, and shredded to feed baby birds.

Chihuahuas fetch a really high price, several hundred to over a thousand dollars. It’s not that unlikely that someone stole the dog either to resell or to keep for themselves. If you have an expensive purebred, especially extremely popular purse dogs, don’t leave it alone in public.

At first I thought Linda and her ,Daughter included lots of personal information that was edited out because of the odd spacing. Looking closer, I don’t even think she even included a street name. The note just says “400 E. Court” which doesn’t appear to be edited.

Tea cup chihuahuas are tiny. At 10 weeks old, they are even tinier. Unless her front yard was fenced with hamster-proof mesh, my money is on young Tobby doing a runner, and getting run over by a neighbor. She should check between the treads of the tires of the cars that were parked on the street that day. And with the next one, because with people like these you know that there will be a next one, tie a knot in little Tobby’s tail so he can’t slip all the way through the fence.

However, my money is on a little rat dog like that escaping and getting run over or picked up by someone who thought it was a stray. I’ll bet it didn’t have a collar or was microchipped, and if it DID have a collar, someone read the name as “Tobby” and then it was all over from there.

1. Who keeps tapes of their kid’s births in backpacks inside their 4 runner? If you have to tape that crap, leave it at home. And by the way, whoever stole the camcorder is an idiot. If you can break into a vehicle, just steal the whole damn thing.

2. Why would you leave your teacup chihuahua in the front yard unattended? Everything from hawks to rats see them as a food source, they can slip through holes no bigger than your fist, and anyone interested in dog-napping can easily take one look and see that your dog is a purebreed.

I also find it funny how they both thought these thieves believed in karma and had conciences.

@ felix: I bet the proud parents sent out invites to friends, family, neighbors, virtual strangers, etc., inviting them to ‘experience’ the birth on their new 50″ flatscreen. The invitees pooled the money they would’ve had to have spent burning their eyes out of their sockets with HCl or erasing their memories with the aid of hypnotists to hire a skillful robber to nab (and burn) those tapes.

Why would you leave ANY dog unattended in the yard? Aside from them being stolen, or escaping, they also get bored and destroy your yard, and bark at everyone, and potentially become become frustrated and then aggressive. If you don’t want to pay attention to your dog or have a dog in your house, don’t get a dog. Unless you live on a farm or something.

I think the writer is trying to write from a kid’s p.o.v. Someone stoled our special Tobby. Y’know, Shirley Temple lisp and all that. I think she was aiming for cute. You can see what happens when you slip a tab or two, though. Everything goes awry.

Oh Gavin, what a lovely thing of you to say.
Sorry for my typo, but actually now I decided to always use my name in this way, if it really helps someone to have to say something, then it is definitely an amazing thing to do.
By the way, can’t you use capital letters then? Always thought the beginning of a sentence starts with capitals… hmm, weird.

And yes, I actually thought that someone who isn’t so familiar with the English language wrote it. With writing “stoled” and “cry’s” and question marks missing or being in the wrong places.

….slipped tabs? Oh yes, I remember now. The tab that slipped my mind, or did it make my mind slip?

… i was cleaning the closet…. when i looked over and found the box, the one from years ago. it was full of old vinyl records…i put one on the stereo, just for old times. oh, the memories. as i looked deeper into the box, i saw it. the magic tab,the one i had slipped into the corner to save for another time.
as i sat there petting tobby on my lap, i saw the little tab of orange sunshine. without ceremony i slipped it onto my tongue, a tiny communion wafer, soon to disolve into wild abandon. the music, the colors, they were glorious. as i sat there in a mind numbing trance.
i am
so sorry, i really shouldn’t
have done
it…… poor tobby

i thought he was a small cornish game hen, a tiny morsel of meat, to be savored and enjoyed.

Bravo, fan. That was the kind of interpretation I was hoping to invoke

By the way, bETTY, I think Gavin was continuing a thought process, so he wouldn’t need a capital letter as he was actually writing a fragment, perhaps. Maybe he should have included ellipsis.

I put this up yesterday and then took it down, but I’ll do it again. I think she is a native speaker. She has punctuation and spelling mistakes, and her style is from la-la land, or unable-to-use-a-computer land, but her grammar is fine, as is her word order.

The two mistakes she has which could be called grammatical are her use of ‘stoled’ and a possible missing ‘if’. Little kids often use irregular verbs incorrectly as they are coming to terms with English grammar usage and this is why I think the writer is trying to copy a little kid’s voice.

Word order, missing third person ‘s’, missing articles, wrong tense usually indicate a non-native English speaker. I don’t think this is the case here. As I said, style, punctuation and spelling are all over the shop, but many native speakers don’t have a clue about punctuation or spelling. Grammar in use and word order, however, most native speakers know how to do this, even if they don’t realise it. I’m sticking with it being a native speaker.

I suspect “Tobby” is an unintelligent rendering of “Toby.” Makes me wonder what the daughter’s name is and how poorly it’s spelled.

Also, I’m on the “the dog ran away and/or got eaten” train. My guess is the parent knows this and doesn’t want to admit to the kid the dog is probably gone for good. Then again, this does not seem like a reasonable, logical parent so who knows.

1) True, but consultation of the Aquinas Forecaster (Saint’s pre-golf and pre-Nostradamus essay at out-Nostradamusing Nostradamus) shows us that in these 2 cases, both thieves were damned, their punishment being possession, watching, caring and feeding of the other’s kewl l00t, while enduring a lifetime spent inside the skin of the other’s’ victim, with whom they transmigrated souls.

2) Someone spelling-impaired who is watching for irony at the intersections of the careers of Spiderman and DiCaprio.

3) Apparently someone on Capitol Hill or Pill Hill in Seattle used to.
If anyone still does, then presumably either the thief or someone with the condition described in #22.

4) Youthful enthusiasm ? Subconscious cry for attention ? Genuine mix of surprise and wonder ? Of course these are only intermediate level causes, whose roots may or may not be found after much soul-searching and/or professional consultation. No warranty expressed or implied.

Actually, Tobby was taken by the videotape thief and forced to watch birth porn (subtitled – the amazing expanding vajayjay) until he committed suicide. The whole thing was videotaped on the stolen camera and posted to Youtube. PETA will be intervening soon.

1. Being from the suburban East Coast I was blissfully unaware until reading this comment thread that various birds of prey regularly swoop down and capture/eat small dogs in the state of Washington.
2. Why would any self-respecting thief WANT to steal a puppy tea-cup chihuahua? Isn’t that like doggie Ransom of Red Chief? Is it worth enough in value to deal with all the yipping etc?

1. Really? Because I’m from the suburban east coast, and the birds of prey here function pretty much the same as anywhere else– they eat small animals. Not to mention foxes (my cousin’s dog got in to a fight with a fox when it was younger… fortunately, they didn’t leave her outside alone for long periods of time and were able to chase the fox away before it did serious harm).

2. To resell… purebred dogs are fucking delicious expensive. Though, as has been said above, I think Occam’s Razor disagrees with the assertion that the dog was stolen.

Well in coastal NJ the only birds of prey I ever saw were seagulls and they never carried off a small dog. And living in DC the closest I get to wild animals are rats, squirrels and whatever is in the National Zoo. Hence nature in action makes me nervous, I’m a city dweller and proud of it.

We have eagles and hawks and owls up here. If anything smaller than a full grown housecat is at risk, I’m certain Tobby has a good chance of being Big Bird’s jerky.

As for the possibility of Tobby being stolen to be resold, a thief doesn’t have to make alot off of selling Toby. Any profit is 100% more than what they originally got the dog for.

That, and I know people who steal just for the sake of stealing, thinking that it makes their dumb asses look clever. I know a guy who stole half of a trailer hitch and bragged about it. He didn’t even have a trailer to attach it to.

“There are 15 territorial pairs of which 13 bred successfully in 2001 in New York City on bridges and buildings. The falcons are drawn to the city by the cliff-like topography of high-rise buildings and by the plethora of food (pigeons, sparrows, starlings, etc.).”

So, while not being puppy-snatchers, there are birds of prey in the Northeastern US.
Even in cities.

In D.C. the most active and interesting wildlife is not found in the National Zoo (A.K.A. the Supreme Court), it’s mostly found on Capitol Hill and on K Street.

If she can’t spell “Toby” correctly, I shudder to think what that woman named her daughter and how she spelled said name. My sister is a teacher who had a child in her class with an interesting name. The mother went postal when my sister couldn’t figure out to say the child’s name during “Get to Know Your Teacher Night.” The little girl’s name was “L-sha.” How would you pronounce that? The first person who guesses wins a tiny teacup chihuahua with only a small bit of frostbite around the toes and ears.

Comes in two variations; laughing and spotted, and the variations between them are exactly the same.

Then, of almost the same genus, are those that exhibit a rugged kind of individualism, spaced out, stand alone, evenly divided between two worlds. Conversely, yet another species cannot bear to not be in close physical proximity to others, and draws everything together, making it whole.

I hate to say it but people survived just fine before camcorders were invented. In fact no one, except maybe you, will ever want to see video of your wedding or birth ever again. Your kids are certainly never going to want to see it! And while some friends might fake their way through a wedding video to make you happy, not so much with childbirth.

The dog is irreplaceable, its something that is missed every single day. OTH get your kid another dog, show them life goes on and you don’t have to let evil people ruin your life.

I just love the second sign. Its got some pizzazz to it. Tobby is at first the eight year old’s dog, then the parent’s dog. Also, using the parenthesis instead of quotation marks was a very nice touch. Oh, and the sweet legibility, or lack of, brought it all together. Then, there’s the classic – guilting. “Why would you want to hurt my daughter by stealing her Tobby?”. Let’s not forget the capatilization of “Daughter”, even though it doesn’t start a sentence and it isn’t a proper noun. Last but not least – no grammar is least – are the question marks used to puncuate a declarative sentence. Ahh, sweet grammar… It’s about as bitchy as karma.

I don’t know what’s more disturbing all the question marks or that the note is addressed to the dog. He clearly ran off for a reason. I hope the 8 year old wrote this. Which makes sense because we all know children under 10 like to write notes, or make phone calls, and pretend they’re an adult/their parent. I keep thinking of my old Chinese algebra teacher. She used to call my classmate Tubee (Tube-e) instead of Toby. LOL I still to this day have no idea how you get tubee from Toby.

I’m impressed. If someone pulled a runner on my backpack with a video camera in it, I don’t think I’d be so kind as to give him my home address so he could come by sometime for my computer, TV, extra tapes, etc. I mean, you can’t expect the poor guy to finish his magnum opus without a full video editing station, do you? He can’t even afford his own video camera!